The paper examines the attitudes and language conceptions
of dominating and non-dominating language communities of pluricentric
languages which differ in many ways. It is shown that in dominating
nations the one-nation-one-language concept is an undisputed
basic concept which is shared by most speakers of these varieties
and brings about a clear distinction between linguistic "standard"
and "nonstandard-forms". Contrary to that speakers
of non-dominating varieties find themselves under pressure to
legitimate their "deviating" language behavior, even
though they might use the standard variety of their country.
The situation also leads to a kind of "diglossia" between
the own national norms and the exogene norms of the dominating
nation. The paper also looks at the psychological effects of
this situation and at possible ways to overcome it. It is shown
that the non-dominating varieties face a dilemma as a thorough
codification of their actual linguistic norms sooner or later
leads to a separation from the norms of the dominating variety
and to the development of a language of it's own.

1. Non-dominating varieties of languages - A brief definition

The terminology "dominating" - "other varieties"
(=non-dominating) has been introduced into sociolinguistics by
M. Clyne in his 1992 anthology "Pluricentric languages -
Differing norms in differing nations. Dominating varieties (DV)
are usually identical to the varieties of the country where the
language originates. In most cases the DV are also the ones with
the largest population and the most powerful country behind them.
Non-dominating varieties (NDV) are the varieties in all the other
countries sharing that language - quite often
they are also the "younger" ones. This is the case with
Chinese, Dutch, German, French, Greek, and Swedish which are typical
examples of a "asymmetrical pluricentricity"(1),
while Arab and English are examples of a more "symmetrical
pluricentricity" (at least for the major varieties). Portuguese
is an example where the power relation has been reversed - all
"new" varieties have larger populations than the "mother
variety", especially Brazilian Portuguese. The language situation
of the "other varieties" therefore differs considerably
from language to language. Languages which are rather relaxed
in respect to the inner-linguistic divisions are Arab, English,
Spanish and to some extent Portuguese.

2. Introduction - The believes of monocentric language communities

To begin with I would like to present a quotation from George
Lüdis article on "French as pluricentric language"
(1992:153f) which describes some central notions of linguistic
and cultural monocentrism which are often shared by speakers of
dominating varieties of pluricentric languages:

"Monoglossic unilingualism has indeed often been seen
not only as warranty for the unity of the nation but also for
the salvation of its citizens." And French is not an exception
to this attitude but rather a forerunner and model." ...
The key term of the centralist and monoglossic linguistic ideology
developed in the seventeenth century was bon usage i.e.
correct usage. Vaguelas conceived the idea that there is one
unique bon usage (that of the elite: "the sanest
part of the court") and many "bad usages" (those
of the majority of the speakers), the concept "bad usage"
including social as well regional deviations from the norm."

This little piece of text assembles all the central notions
of monocentric believes. Taking it from there and from observations
on other pluricentric languages, the core of monocentric conceptions
of languages can be summed up in six points:

There is only one language with a certain name (French, German
etc.) and there is only one language norm for it.

A specific nation is represented by that language and the
nation represents that language as its most valuable asset and
symbol.

Any person belonging to that nation is supposed to speak
only one variety of that language - the norm - which is the only
correct one. This is to be done in all communicative situations
private or official ones.

The "good and correct usage" of the language is
only achieved by a small minority. The majority of the speakers
is not in command of this kind of language which makes the norm
to a social dialect of the elite's and anyone wanting to belong
to them has to adopt this norm and to adapt to it.

The norm of the language is decided at the centre of the
nation - in and around the capital city and thus denying any
participation to the periphery of the language.

The central objectives of monocentric language policies are
to fight moves which potentially endanger the unity of the language
and to spread the language to other countries and regions of
the world in those cases where the language is backed by a demographically
and economically powerful nation.

The central notions of monocentrism can thus be summed up under
the following terms: centralist, elitist, monolingual, mono-normative
and derogatory towards non-core-norm speakers.

Every single point of this concept is basically contrary to
the principles of democracy which most countries now have adopted
as their governing system. If democracy means participation, plurality
and the right to express this plurality via political participation
by forming political bodies and institutions these principles
seem to fail completely in respect to national languages and in
particular to pluricentric languages. They are still governed
by the idea of one-to-one uniqueness towards other languages in
quietly neglecting the national variation which usually exists
within the language itself. This is justified by arguments of
necessity that there has to be a single standard and the linguistic
life of modern industrialist societies would become too confused
and unstable if too much variation is allowed.

My list of monocentric features may sound very extremist and
will probably cause objections of the kind that no known language
pursues them as a whole. This list is therefore rather hypothetical
and only typical for asymmetrical pluricentricity. I think that
such an objection is correct to some extend. However, this does
not make the list of features invalid as different languages use
mix of these features if we have a closer look at them.

The reason for starting off with a description of language
attitudes which are typical for in monocentric languages or dominating
varieties is that non-dominating varieties (NDV) are strongly
influenced by the attitudes of their dominating sisters. A second
reason is that this list contains all the counterpoints which
NDV have to cope with in maintaining their variety. The list also
explains many sociolinguistic and social psychological phenomena
which occur in NDV and also to some extend the differences in
the linguistic self-confidence of the language communities of
dominating and non-dominating nations which themselves differ
largely - depending on the general language situation of the particular
pluricentric language.

The scope of the problem becomes clear by a little anecdote
told by Thompson (1992:55) who reported a conversation with the
Peruvian linguist Alberto Escobar who in 1975 had travelled to
the USA and on the way had met colleagues from universities in
Quito (Ecuador), Bogotá (Columbia) Caracas (Venezuela),
San Juan (Puerto Rico), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and
in the USA. He was pleased to find "that Spanish was really
one language and that slight differences in phonology, lexicon
and syntax were more exciting topics for discussion than barriers
to communication." On the return flight he stopped at the
same cities but this time without guides, sleeping in modest hotels
and eating in popular cafes and restaurants. After this trip he
concluded that "it would have been easy to believe that in
each of the seven countries a different language was spoken, and
each one was unintelligible to the inhabitants of the next".

This little story makes it clear of what we are talking about
here: It is the relation between language and identity, the relation
between language and power and the linguistic divisions existing
within the linguistic communities and countries sharing a pluricentric
language.

3. The language situation and language conceptions in non-dominating
varieties of pluricentric languages

Taking the monocentric language conceptions as a starting point
we can now give an outline of the precarious language situation
of most NDV. Important features of that situation are:

There is a split between language and nation - the nation
cannot (primarily) be represented through the official language
of the country as it is shared with other countries and its ownership
is often symbolically occupied by the dominating nation. It is
not possible to link the individual identity to the national
language and to argue that one is "Austrian" or "Belgian"
because ones native language is "German" or "Dutch"
etc.

A common reaction to this situation is a general confusion
about the status of it's own language and to develop a kind of
inofficial bilingualism which uses the common standard norm in
formal and official situations and a native norm (usually developed
on the basis of the norm of capital city or large towns) in everyday
and personal situations of interaction. This is the case in Austrian
and Swiss German, Belgian Dutch, Belgian, Swiss and African French.
It is also standard practice in Arab speaking countries and in
the Spanish speaking world.

There is a more or less strong division in the use of language
norms between the élites of a NDV and the general population
of that country. As M. Clyne already pointed out (1992:459) the
élites of NDV have a strong tendency to adapt to the norms
of the DV and to avoid their own norms as they are either dialectally
and sociolectally marked or considered to be a potential obstacle
for an envisaged career in the dominating nations. The effect
of this attitude is that expressions of NDV are avoided or lowered
in status as the cultural élites are not loyal to them.
A second effect is a sociolinguistic split in society - the norms
of the élites are opposed to the norms of the general
public and have to be acquired in institutions. A side effect
of this is a devaluation of the general public norm. Due to the
existence of dialectal varieties, this phenomenon also exists
in DV, but is much stronger in NDV.

Depending on the dialectal fragmentation and the linguistic
self-confidence of the country (which is directly linked to the
age of the variety), speakers of ND varieties often do not follow
the one-language-one norm paradigm of language usage. They instead
practice undeclared innerlinguistic-multilingualism (innere Mehrsprachigkeit)
in conver sation using local, regional, pan-regional, national
and even international varieties of their language side by side
and switching between them depending on the specific needs of
the communicative situation. This linguistic practice is however
often not considered as a positive skill but rather denounced
as a lack of linguistic competence of the standard norm. On the
side of most speakers this kind of "double language use"
is mostly happening as a semiconscious practice and not as a
structured process.
Generally speaking there are many positive effects connected
with this language behavior as it leads to a greater adaptability
in social interaction and by that a source of social success.
The richness in language skills and the tensions between official
and inofficial language norms in other varieties can also be
the source for linguistic creativity and lead to particular literary
productivity. A good example for this is Austrian literature
which is known for its disproportional large literary productivity
ever since world war II. This phenomenon is explained by some
authors by the linguistic plurality within Austrian German.
If however Austrian authors try to publish their writings in
Germany they find themselves struggling with the desk editors
of the publishing houses over the particularities of their national
variety and often enough see them removed from their manuscripts
as they are not considered as "standard".

The codification of the particular linguistic features of
a NDV is a central criteria for the status planning of a NDV
but impeded by a number of restrictions. The (inofficial) guideline
for the codification of NDV usually is to avoid a split of the
common language into separate languages and not to loose the
connection to the DV. This leads to a reduction of the codification
of variety-specific features in two respects:

5.1. The number of codified features is reduced by picking
only those features which are thought to be "standard"
in the sense that they are used by so called "educated speakers".
As this layer of society usually has a tendency to avoid linguistic
features and expressions of their own variety, many common and
widespread features of the NDV do not find their way into the
dictionaries.
5.2. If the expressions find their way into the reference books
nevertheless, they are often marked with terms like "colloquial",
"dialectal", "slang" or "regional"
which significantly reduce their status. There are two such markers
in German dictionaries which are almost universally used for
that purpose: "umgangssprachlich" (colloquial) and
"landschaftlich" (regional) - the latter used to "denationalize"
lexicon entries by denying them their national status they have
in many cases.
5.3. The codification is also hampered by the unresolved question
how words and expressions should be treated which do not have
the proper phonological standard forms. There are two possible
solutions for that:
a) They are adapted to the standard forms and by loose their
original linguistic form and often enough become strange to their
users.
b) The forms are codified according to their original phonological
quality, causing an enlargement of the phoneme set of the language
and by that become unintelligible to speakers of other national
varieties.
The common answer of codifiers to this central question is to
adapt the non-standard forms to the rules of the given phonological
system underlying written language and to "neutralize"
them by removing the features of their non-standard origin.
5.4. Another obstacle for the codification and shaping of the
national norm in NDV is the concentration of the norm-setting
institutions in or around the capital city or large urban agglomerations
leaving peripheral regions aside. This practice leads to a certain
alienation to the "central" norm of the NDV by speakers
living in other areas outside the urban centres. This regional
imbalance in the codifying process is partly caused by the "standard"
paradigm which assumes that the "standard language"
is always linked to the norm of the élites which by definition
are living in the political and economical centres.
5.5. If the codification of the norms of a NDV (like in the case
of Swiss German which does not have a dictionary of its own)
takes place in the DV, even fewer features of NDV are accepted.
They are usually marked with a respective national marker whereas
the equivalent features of the DV remain unmarked.
5.6. Linguistic innovations in DVs are codified as soon as they
have achieved a certain spread as dictionary makers try to keep
up with linguistic changes. Contrary to that are linguistic innovations
in NDV seen as attempts to split the common language and disapproved
by the codifies of the DV.

The effect of this codification policy is that the NDV pay
a huge tribute to the norms of the DV and constantly devaluate
their own norms in oder to uphold the unity of the language.

All this quite often leads to massive inferiority-complexes
on the side of speakers of NDV whereas speakers of DV have the
tendency to consider their norm as the only correct one and any
other as "dialect". Most speakers of NDV therefore have
a tendency to consider their variety as inferior to that of the
dominating one. This is mainly caused by the fact that the educational
institutions of NDV usually do not convey their national norms
in contrast to other countries sharing that language and make
pupils aware of their proper linguistic norms.

The undeclared guideline of native language teachers in primary
schools in their daily work is that (a) there is only one
language and (b) that there is only one good norm for it
- the so called standard norm which often is contrary to the daily
norm and far from the national norm. The effect of this educational
practice on the side of speakers of NDV is widespread ignorance
of the particular linguistic and communicative features of their
own variety which contributes massively to the devaluation and
avoidance of linguistic features of the NDV. A resulting effect
of this lack of knowledge is what I use to call "linguistic
schizophrenia" which can be described like that: The proper
national norm is heavily practiced but officially depreciated
- the official norm is rarely practiced but officially highly
appreciated.

If we sum up this situation we can conclude that for NDV of
a pluricentric language there are three basic options to resolve
its situation:

Leave everything as it is - may be codify the variety but
don't make too much fuss about your own variety as the unity
of the language and the participation in a large language is
the dominating objective.

Properly codify your variety according to the real use, irrespective
whether this changes the language or even creates a new language
as the central objective is to have an agreement between actual
oral usage and codified, resp. written language. This inevitably
leads to a language of it's own in the long run and might cause
social and political opposition.
A solution which combines option (1) and (2) could be the development
of systematic bilingualism teaching both norms (the own and the
former dominating one) in school. Whether this option is feasible
depends on different factors which are difficult to predict.
In any case, a self-confident and culturally progressive political
class seems to be necessary to take the necessary steps to achieve
such a fundamental change in language policy.

Give up the idea of having a norm of your own as language
in modern society is not a predominant feature of individual
identity and foster multilingualism towards other languages instead.
It makes the world an easier and more communicate place to live
in. And may be you just wait a little while with language-planning
measures (codification and measures to improve language awareness).
Global TV-satellite networks will achieve the levelling of your
norms without extra effort. The motto of this option is: Just
join the linguistic superpowers and forget about self determination.

Which of these three options is chosen by a given language
community depends on their history, their social and political
development and on many other factors and will probably largely
differ from country to country. The quest for linguistic and cultural
distinctiveness will however remain a permanent need in all communities
irrespective of their economic and political welfare.